The altered plan for Butler’s Centre City project, which would eliminate parking to save money, calls to mind a story about the older gentleman who set out to hand-deliver a letter across town. While walking to his destination, the man tripped and fell. His injuries, while not life-threatening, required an ambulance trip to the emergency room, bandages, x-rays, a cast and a couple of prescription medications and a mild painkiller.

All told, the man spent several hundred dollars for treatment — when his original motive was to save the cost of the postage stamp he considered too expensive.

This story could become an analogy for Centre City. A Rite Aid pharmacy under construction, and a 75-room Springhill Suites hotel preparing to break ground will take up most of three existing parking lots bordered by South Main, East Cunningham, South McKean and East Jefferson streets. Original plans called for a three-tiered parking garage at the corner of McKean and Cunningham, a portion of which would be leased permanently to the hotel. But those plans changed recently, with a surface lot replacing the tier garage — and the hotel would lease all 75 spaces in that lot, leaving none for public parking.

The logic is simple enough: Construction of the three-tiered, 225 space garage would take an estimated $4.5 million. The flat lot will take about $450,000.

It’s undeniable that $4.5 million represents a very large postage stamp; however, if Centre City trips and falls for lack of it, Butler will be stuck with a painful boondoggle and — absent the essential parking spaces needed to stimulate downtown commercial activity — no way to recoup its losses. Istead of stimulating new business, the project’s lack of adequate, convenient parking might actually hinder businesses already in operation and even drive some of them out of the city.

And already there are other anecdotes surfacing. Like the report heard recently about the prospective downtown tenant who canceled an appointment to see an upscale apartment. The prospective tenant said the lack of parking was a concern. Or the business owner who is backing away from the idea of buying the building she now rents. Same reason.

More stories can be expected.

And while anecdotes are not an accurate measure of public opinion, a petition being circulated is one solid gauge that city officials should consider. The petition demands that the parking authority fully fund and build the garage. The Butler Downtown Main Street Manager program is spearheading the petition, downtown business owners reportedly are rallying around it.

To paraphrase the theme of yet another anecdote: If we don’t build it, they might not come.